Fractal Softworks Forum

Starsector => Suggestions => Topic started by: Tartiflette on September 10, 2019, 12:17:46 AM

Title: Improve the Trident!
Post by: Tartiflette on September 10, 2019, 12:17:46 AM
Tridents needs to fire three Harpoons. It's so obvious I don't think it needs any more justifications than that.
Title: Re: Improve the Trident!
Post by: SonnaBanana on September 10, 2019, 12:30:17 AM
Absolutely agreed!
Title: Re: Improve the Trident!
Post by: goduranus on September 10, 2019, 12:53:22 AM
OMG Yes Please!
Title: Re: Improve the Trident!
Post by: Alex on September 10, 2019, 08:14:54 AM
Hah! On the one hand, facepalm, yes. On the other hand, they'd erase far too many smaller ships, wouldn't they? Harpoons on fighters seem pretty dodgy in general.
Title: Re: Improve the Trident!
Post by: goduranus on September 10, 2019, 08:17:28 AM
Yes Yes Yes, everyone please support this thread! Trident = 3 harpoons!!! :P

Trident actually looks pretty badass with 3 harpoons.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sMmobxqQm18

Files attached to get the triple harpoon trident for yourself, extract to" starsector/starsector-core/data" folder and overwrite

Edit: Ninjaed by Alex while I was uploading vid!
I don't think Harpoons would be very deadly except on the Astral, cuz any other carrier hardly have enough ordinance points to actually use the Trident in a meaningful way. Maybe they could be like an offensive Xyphos and be limited to escort, with Harpoons needing warship systems for fire control or something.

[attachment deleted by admin]
Title: Re: Improve the Trident!
Post by: Tartiflette on September 10, 2019, 08:20:48 AM
Hah! On the one hand, facepalm, yes. On the other hand, they'd erase far too many smaller ships, wouldn't they? Harpoons on fighters seem pretty dodgy in general.
Wings of one fighter for 14OP, armed with three Harpoon (short range) variant of the missile.
Title: Re: Improve the Trident!
Post by: Igncom1 on September 10, 2019, 08:24:03 AM
To be fair the tracking torpedo they are currently armed with is just god awful. 1/4th of the damage of the reaper torpedo, terrible tracking and barely even double the numbers in return.

I'd take a reaper or harpoon over those any day.
Title: Re: Improve the Trident!
Post by: Alex on September 10, 2019, 08:45:11 AM
Wings of one fighter for 14OP, armed with three Harpoon (short range) variant of the missile.

The thing I want to stay away from is making it so much like a "yep, this is a more expensive missile launcher with unlimited ammo". I realize that to some extent this is already true of fighters, but generally that's conceptual ("do damage at range without direct risk"), where this would be much more literal. Other fighter-mounted missiles are at least more impacted by how the fighters operate; the Harpoon is maneuverable enough and has enough range that it's basically just free non-stop Harpoons at any nearby target, no attack runs needed...

The old Thunder had a Harpoon, and that's mainly why it doesn't anymore.
Title: Re: Improve the Trident!
Post by: Alex on September 10, 2019, 08:45:59 AM
Yes Yes Yes, everyone please support this thread! Trident = 3 harpoons!!! :P

Trident actually looks pretty badass with 3 harpoons.

(That does look pretty awesome, btw.)
Title: Re: Improve the Trident!
Post by: Goumindong on September 10, 2019, 10:09:41 AM
Tridents could be modified such that their harpoons were short range. Or at least launch from the same range as the current atropos. It may be a reduction in raw power due to the reduction in penetration power/missile HP but it would he more apropos
Title: Re: Improve the Trident!
Post by: Wyvern on September 10, 2019, 10:12:21 AM
Hm... Maybe with some lore that they had to strip most of the guidance (or perhaps most of the fuel/range) from the harpoons to get them to fit onto a fighter-sized frame?
Title: Re: Improve the Trident!
Post by: Sinosauropteryx on September 10, 2019, 10:14:16 AM
You could just call em Bidents.
Title: Re: Improve the Trident!
Post by: goduranus on September 10, 2019, 10:22:23 AM
Wait, before we talking about nerfing the Harpoons that would go on the Trident, could we actually try it and see if they are really unbalanced or not, cuz I am not entirely sure if that would be the case or not. Tridents fly very slowly so they take a long time to return for reload, and consume huge amount of OP so that the carrier using them can't equip anything else. I tried Heron with text edited Tridents and wan't able to kill a Enforcer in a couple of attack runs, and wasn't able to kill most frigates because the frigates would vent in the time it took for the Tridents to rearm. The only carriers that made Tridents unstoppable was the Astral, but most ships are toast when facing the Astral anyways.
Title: Re: Improve the Trident!
Post by: Wyvern on September 10, 2019, 10:31:53 AM
I -think- the use-case Alex is concerned about is battle-carriers (or, especially if the OP cost gets reduced along with a change to a single-fighter wing, ships using Converted Hangar) with a wing of tridents held in reserve, where they'll just hover around the carrier, fire their harpoons at nearby targets, and more-or-less-instantly re-arm.

Which is something of a fair concern; I do do exactly that with Longbow wings on certain ships - leaving them on reserve to fire sabots at whatever gets close, and only rarely giving them an actual engage order.
Edit: Though I'll also note that Longbows on reserve are also useful as a bit of extra PD, and, unlike most interceptor wings, will actually tend to hover around the rear of your ship to help intercept salamanders.
Title: Re: Improve the Trident!
Post by: Plantissue on September 10, 2019, 10:38:53 AM
As it is now, Atropos Torpedo has a pretty good hit rate vs Frigate. I would estimate 80% +. But sure, why not just add another reason to not take normal frigates?

The Atropos does not have the terrible tracking. Sometimes I wonder if we are playing the same game.
Title: Re: Improve the Trident!
Post by: Thaago on September 10, 2019, 10:45:42 AM
I prefer Atropos over Harpoon, as long as its not extreme range thats needed. They have better tracking and higher hitpoints, but lower range. Less total damage in a small mount (2k vs 2.25k) but moderately better armor penetration, so that is roughly even.
Title: Re: Improve the Trident!
Post by: goduranus on September 10, 2019, 11:23:00 AM
The thread isn’t saying that Atropos aren’t good, but that a trident is a three headed harpoon.
Title: Re: Improve the Trident!
Post by: Megas on September 10, 2019, 11:26:14 AM
I wish Atropos was a bit more damaging (like 1200).  They used to do 2000 for 3 DP.  Now only 1000 for 2.  They are just short-ranged Harpoons that are a bit sturdier (but cannot hit point-blank like Harpoons).  Stupid fighters making them weak for ships, much like Mora ruining Damper Field for frigates in the 0.8.1a release.

One thing I recently noticed about Tridents is they seem to launch Atropos from further away than Daggers.

I like the idea of support Harpoon fighter chained to the carrier.  Longbows do a good job lobbing Sabots at enemies while chained to the carrier with Regroup.  Having more support fighters would be nice for brawlers like Odyssey.
Title: Re: Improve the Trident!
Post by: Goumindong on September 10, 2019, 11:45:38 AM
I -think- the use-case Alex is concerned about is battle-carriers (or, especially if the OP cost gets reduced along with a change to a single-fighter wing, ships using Converted Hangar) with a wing of tridents held in reserve, where they'll just hover around the carrier, fire their harpoons at nearby targets, and more-or-less-instantly re-arm.

Which is something of a fair concern; I do do exactly that with Longbow wings on certain ships - leaving them on reserve to fire sabots at whatever gets close, and only rarely giving them an actual engage order.

Yea. Which is why the solution, if you wanted to make sure the tridents name was apropos without making it hilariously OP, would be to give the tridents special harpoons that only had 1200 range like Atropos. Which might actually be a nerf due to the reduction in penetration.
Title: Re: Improve the Trident!
Post by: Alex on September 10, 2019, 02:13:29 PM
I -think- the use-case Alex is concerned about is battle-carriers (or, especially if the OP cost gets reduced along with a change to a single-fighter wing, ships using Converted Hangar) with a wing of tridents held in reserve, where they'll just hover around the carrier, fire their harpoons at nearby targets, and more-or-less-instantly re-arm.

Yea. Which is why the solution, if you wanted to make sure the tridents name was apropos without making it hilariously OP, would be to give the tridents special harpoons that only had 1200 range like Atropos. Which might actually be a nerf due to the reduction in penetration.

Yeah, that is the probably more-concerning use case. Although That same Heron that's not so good 1-1 could become way too scary in a support role, dumping Harpoons into anything close to overload repeatedly. The AI wouldn't be able to use it this way, but that's kind of an additional problem.

Making a special version of Harpoons, though... that doesn't feel great, i.e. "here's a thing that looks the same but behaves differently". There are other fighter-only weapons, but at least their projectiles are consistent with non-fighter versions in terms of speed, damage, etc. This would feel qualitatively different.
Title: Re: Improve the Trident!
Post by: Goumindong on September 10, 2019, 02:23:28 PM
You could give it a new special torpedo that split into three. Of which it would get one. You could call it a trident torpedo or trident missile or Trident MIRV* and well have it behave like a MIRV. It would then split as it came in and then arc towards the enemy looking one hell of a lot like a trident.

Not only would it be unique it would be appropriate for its name

More Edits: 750 damage projectile on the MIRV projectile HP/speed path sounds right. Though it would need MIRV range lowered of course.

*We will affectionately call it the TIRV for Triple independent re-entry vehicle. And it will sound gloriously dumb.
Title: Re: Improve the Trident!
Post by: xenoargh on September 10, 2019, 10:27:40 PM
I second the idea of a little MIRV.  It's a shame that that's a theme only used once.
Title: Re: Improve the Trident!
Post by: DatonKallandor on September 11, 2019, 04:26:50 PM
Going for a three-headed missile instead of giving the bomber 3 missiles would be good way to stay in theme yeah. MIRVs are cool, so that's another bonus.
Title: Re: Improve the Trident!
Post by: bowman on September 18, 2019, 01:38:42 AM
I think it would be cool if the Trident had a different role than it does now, in that I think it'd be neat as a Kinetic bomber instead of HE.

Give it a "Trident MIRV" which acts similarly to a sabot but initially moves much faster (you get that nice trident handle/staff section ;) ), then splits into 3 high-damaging kinetic projectiles (say, 250 Kinetic damage, 100 EMP each?) and, potentially very odd: make it actually deal more damage to shields with better efficiencies. Trident gets a bit in its description about "being designed to threaten even the most technologically advanced vessels in the sector"

Depending on lore state, as to whether or not anything new has been designed post-collapse, (it's a little odd because I think it is "no" but the AI wars were all post-collapse, meaning Tri-Tachyon designed an entire fleet of AI-only ships) the Trident could have been brought about specifically to deal with said AI ships and bring Tri-Tachyon down a peg.
Title: Re: Improve the Trident!
Post by: Yunru on September 18, 2019, 05:47:50 AM
Hah! On the one hand, facepalm, yes. On the other hand, they'd erase far too many smaller ships, wouldn't they? Harpoons on fighters seem pretty dodgy in general.
Obviously they need to fire "Spear missiles" that just happen to do the damage of it's current loadout :P